Dublin Minors Reach All- Ireland Decider in Close Finish
Dublin 1-11 Galway 1-9
Dublin minors had to battle bravely to overcome a skillful Galway outfit to reach the MFC decider in Croke Park this afternoon. A superb rally by Galway straight after the break yielded 1-4 without reply and took Galway from four points down at the break to three points up . Galway were playing all the football at this stage and were winning every ball around the middle of the field . Paul Mannion stopped the rot in the 43rd minute with a point off his left foot when a high ball towards the Galway goal broke in his favour . Dublin’s man of the match, Ciarán Kilkenny equalised in the 50th minute . The final ten minutes was interrupted with a number of injury stoppages . However John Small from centre back decided to take matters into his own hands and kicked an excellent point to put Dublin ahead in the 59th minute . Kilkenny pointed to increase the margin in injury time . Galway responded through free taker Shane Walsh with a pointed free . A clever kick out by Dublin goalkeeper Ross O’ Hanlon allowed Dublin keep possession and move the ball up the field to force a last minute free which Kilkenny converted to see the Dubs through to their first final since 2003 .
Dublin got a dream start to this game . Emmett Ó Conghaile gathered from the throw in , launched an attack with a foot pass to Paul Mannion who offloaded to Cormac Costelloe . He carried to goals and passed to Scott Fullham who dispatched the ball to the net with his trusty left boot . One would be forgiven for thinking that the Dubs would overrun Galway . However as the half wore on, Galway improved and registered a couple of lovely scores not least of them two points from play by the impressive Conor Rabbitte .
Scott Fullham scored the point of the first half from the Hogan Stand side of the pitch with his left boot . Ciaran Kilkenny added to the Dublin lead when he worked a one two from a free kick after Cormac Costelloe was fouled . This left Galway facing an uphill battle at the break with the Dubs leading by 1-5 to 0-4.
Dublin Scorers ; Scott Fullham 1-1, Ciarán Kilkenny 0-1 , Cormac Costelloe 0-1 , , Gavin Ivory 0-1 ( 45) Ciarán Kilkenny 0-5 (2f), P Mannion 0-1, John Small 0-1 ,
Galway Scorers; Shane Walsh 1-4 (1-0 pen, 4f), Conor Rabbitte 0-3, Shane Maughan 0-1 , Ian Burke 0-1